What’s the most exciting thing you’ve found while swimming? It might be a shell or a piece of driftwood you mistook for a shark. Chances are, it wasn’t a sword. But, for one eight-year-old Swedish girl, it was.
Before The Sword
Saga Vanecek, 8, and her family had a cottage on Lake Vidöstern in Tånnö, an area of southern Sweden. The water level had been very shallow this summer; Saga’s father told her it was the hottest summer in 260 years. He asked her to bring a buoy out into the lake, to warn boats of the incredibly low water level and prevent them from running aground.
“I waded into the water and it was very soft on my skin and refreshing, a little bit cool but not too cold,” Saga says. “It was a nice feeling because the sun was shining and I was very hot. Daddy was begging me to rush so he could watch the World Cup final, but I like to take my time about things so I ignored him.”
She was crawling along the bottom of the lake, looking for skipping stones, when she found it. (1)
The Sword From The Lake
“My hand and knee felt something long and hard buried in the clay and sand,” Saga says. “I pulled it out and saw that it was different from the sticks or rocks I usually find.” She didn’t know quite what it was at first–just that it had a handle on one end and a point on the other. Regardless, she thrust it into the sky and called out, “Daddy, I’ve found a sword!”
She thought she looked like a real warrior. Her father compared her to the children’s book heroine, Pippi Longstocking.
When her father asked to have the sword, Saga was pretty upset. “It was my sword,” she explains, “and now he was taking it away!” But the sword was starting to bend, so she ended up surrendering it to him. (1)
What The Sword Is
While Saga ran to her mother and other relatives to share her exciting news, her father started to investigate. “Daddy went to show it to our neighbors, whose family has lived in the village for more than 100 years,” says Saga. “They said it looked like a Viking sword.”
When they took it to an archaeologist, the woman was instantly excited. She estimated it to be over 1,000 years old.
She was right–but further testing revealed it was actually over 1,500 years old.
The archaeologist asked Saga and her family to keep news of the discovery under wraps until they could check the lake for other artifacts. “I did tell one of my best friends, Emmy, and now I know I can trust her,” Saga explains. “She didn’t tell anybody, except her parents – but they promised not to tell anybody else, so that’s OK.” (1)
Other Discoveries
There was a brooch that looked to be around the same age as the sword, and an 18th-century coin recovered from the lake as well, after examination. Now, Saga’s sword is in a museum–but she’s hoping to raise enough money for a replica she can keep. (1)
